ATC has partnered with SGL Carbon and Ferroglobe for good reasons. SGL Carbon Whether for body and main parts, powertrain, motor block or brake system: As a long-standing component and development partner to the automotive industry, we supply high-quality materials and components for both electric and non-electric mobility. https://www.sglcarbon.com/en/markets-solutions/markets/automotive/#
For lithium-ion battery anodes, we produce high-quality graphite material in the double-digit kiloton range every year. Fueling battery gigafactories with our products is our mission. And we are able to scale up volumes as requested – always maintaining the high performance that characterizes all of our materials. That’s why our products really are “capacity boosters” for energy storage systems, which will help usher in the new era of energy. Note: SGL are purely synthetic graphite and Dr Jingyuan Liu is firmly in the synthetic graphite only camp.
C/Si composite anode material https://www.sglcarbon.com/en/markets-solutions/material/sigracell-specialty-graphites-for-lithium-ion-batteries
As part of the testing they have coated both silicon from Ferroglode, graphite frorm SGL Carbon and I expect SGL Carbon's Graphite/Si composite material. We have read and seen Iggy taking at length about Tesla's and industry's desire for increased amounts of silicon in graphite anodes. My understanding is Altech's objective is to coat a Graphite/Si composite material, (coating both the C and Si together ) and sending the coated composite directly to the LIB cell manufacturers. Coating graphite only won't be a big enough step change to excite the German auto manufacturers IMO. They are excited buy the prospect of what a 30% coated silicon composite could bring. Altech want to slot seamlessly into current LIB materials supply chains and the partnership with SGL Carbon seems to be an excellent fit to me. Iggy has previously mentioned the potential for SGL Carbon and/or Ferroglobe to become investors in a future plant.
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